Revision as of 20:55, February 13, 2014

The 2002 Winter Olympics, officially the XIX Olympic Winter Games, was a winter multi-sport event that was celebrated in February 2002 in and around Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. Approximately 2,400 athletes from 77 nations participated in 78 events in fifteen disciplines, held throughout 165 sporting sessions. The 2002 Winter Olympics and the 2002 Paralympic Games were both organized by the Salt Lake Organizing Committee (SLOC).[1] Utah became the fifth state in the United States to host the Olympic Games, and the 2002 Winter Olympics are the most recent games to be held in the United States.

The opening ceremony was held on February 8, 2002, and sporting competitions were held up until the closing ceremony on February 24, 2002.[1] Music for both ceremonies was directed by Mark Watters.[2] Salt Lake City became the most populous area ever to have hosted the Winter Olympics but was surpassed by Turin in the 2006 Winter Olympics four years later, which itself was surpassed by Vancouver in the 2010 Winter Olympics.[3] Following a trend, the 2002 Olympic Winter Games were also larger than all prior Winter Games, with a considerable 10 more events than the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan;[4] more events yet were staged by Turin and then Vancouver and Sochi Olympics.

The Salt Lake Games faced a bribery scandal and some local opposition during the bid, as well as some sporting and refereeing controversies during the competitions. Nevertheless, from sporting and business standpoints, they were among the most successful Winter Olympiads in history; records were set in both the broadcasting and marketing programs. Over 2 billion viewers watched more than 13 billion viewer hours.[5] The games were also financially successful raising more money with fewer sponsors than any prior Olympic Games, which left SLOC with a surplus of $40 million at the conclusion of the games. The surplus was used to create the Utah Athletic Foundation, which maintains and operates many of the remaining Olympic venues.[5]

These were the first Winter Olympic Games to be opened by an incumbent President of the United States, George W. Bush. Of the three previous Winter Games which had been held in the United States, both Squaw Valley 1960 and Lake Placid 1980 had been opened by Vice Presidents, Richard Nixon and Walter Mondale respectively, while Lake Placid 1932 was opened by Franklin D. Roosevelt during his tenure as Governor of New York. Both Nixon and Roosevelt became President later in their careers.

Contents

Host city selection

Salt Lake City was chosen over Quebec City, Canada; Sion, Switzerland; and Östersund, Sweden on June 16, 1995, at the 104th IOC Session in Budapest, Hungary.[6] Salt Lake City had previously come in second during the bids for the 1998 Winter Olympics, awarded to Nagano, Japan, and had offered to be the provisional host of the 1976 Winter Olympics when the original host, Denver, Colorado, withdrew. The 1976 Winter Olympics were ultimately awarded to Innsbruck, Austria.

John Williams composed a five-minute work for orchestra and chorus, Call of the Champions, that served as the official theme of the 2002 Winter Olympics, his first for a Winter Olympiad. It was performed by the Utah Symphony Orchestra and featured the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Madeleine Choir School singing the official motto of the Olympic Games "Citius, Altius, Fortius" (Faster, Higher, Stronger). The premiere of the work at the opening ceremonies also corresponded with John Williams's 70th birthday. The work is featured on the CD American Journey, and also on the Choir's recording Spirit of America.

Along with the flag that flew at the World Trade Center site, the Challenger flag was also carried into the stadium.

The opening segment of the opening ceremony celebrated all previous hosts of the Olympic Winter Games.

The Olympic Flame was lit by the members of the Gold Medal-winning US Hockey Team of the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, NY, which was the previous time the Winter Olympics were in the US. (See picture at right)

These were the first Games to be held under IOC president Jacques Rogge.

Competition highlights included biathlete Ole Einar Bjørndalen of Norway, winning gold in all four men's events (10 k, 12.5 k, 20 k, 4 x 7.5 relay), Nordic combined athlete Samppa Lajunen of Finland winning three gold medals, Simon Ammann of Switzerland taking the double in ski jumping. In alpine skiing, Janica Kostelić won three golds and a silver (the first Winter Olympic medals ever for an athlete from Croatia and the first three-gold performance by a female), while Kjetil André Aamodt of Norway earned his second and third career golds, setting up both athletes to beat the sport's record with their fourth golds earned at the next Winter Olympics near Turin (Aamodt also set the overall medal record in the sport with 8).

Skeleton returned as a medal sport in the 2002 Games for the first time since 1948.

Ireland reached its best ever position and came close to winning its first winter medal when Clifton Wrottesley (Clifton Hugh Lancelot de Verdon Wrottesley, 6th Baron Wrottesley) finished fourth in the men's skeleton event.

The Women's Bobsled Event had its debut at the 2002 Games after several years of World Cup competition.

A feature of these Games was the emergence of the extreme sports, such as snowboarding, moguls and aerials, which appeared in previous Olympic Winter Games but have captured greater public attention in recent years.

American Sarah Hughes won the gold medal in figure skating. American and heavy favorite Michelle Kwan fell during her long program and received the bronze medal.

China won its first and second Winter Olympic gold medals, both by women's short-track speed skater Yang Yang (A).

One of the most memorable stories of the event occurred at the men's short track. Australian skater Steven Bradbury, a competitor who had won a bronze in 1994 as part of a relay team but well off the pace of the medal favourites, cruised off the pace in his semifinal only to see three of his competitors crash into each other, allowing him to finish second and go through to the final. Bradbury was again well off the pace, but lightning struck again and all four other competitors crashed out in the final turn, leaving a jubilant Bradbury to take the most unlikely of gold medals, the first for Australia—or any other country of the Southern Hemisphere—in the Olympic Winter Games.

Australia winning their second gold medal, courtesy of Alisa Camplin in Women's Aerials, the first ever Winter Games gold won by a woman from the Southern Hemisphere.

There was a Canadian dollar underneath the ice in support of the Canadian men's team, supposedly placed there at the request of Wayne Gretzky, who knew the man responsible for ice upkeep.

Team Belarus's Vladimir Kopat scored a game winning goal from center ice against Team Sweden in the quarter finals, getting Belarus to their best place in international hockey so far.

The games were formally closed by International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge departing from former IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch's tradition of declaring each games "best ever". Rogge's began a tradition of assigning each games their own identity in his comments calling the 2002 Salt Lake Games "flawless"[23]

Concerns and controversies

Bribery to bring the games to Salt Lake City

In 1998, several IOC members were forced to resign after it was uncovered that they had accepted bribes from Salt Lake Bid Committee co-heads Tom Welch and Dave Johnson in return for voting for Salt Lake City to hold the Games. In response to the scandal and a financial shortfall for the games, Mitt Romney, then CEO of the private equity firm Bain Capital, was hired as the new President and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, leaving him and IOC PresidentDr. Jacques Rogge to contend with the public outcry and financial mess.[24] Romney, Kem C. Gardner, a Utah commercial real estate developer, and Don Stirling, the Olympics' local marketing chief, raised "millions of dollars from Mormon families with pioneer roots: the Eccles family, whose forebears were important industrialists and bankers" to help rescue the games, according to a later report.[25] An additional $410 million dollars was received from the federal government.[26]

Disqualifications for doping

The 2002 games were the first Winter Olympics held after formation of the World Anti-Doping Agency; as a result there were a large number of athletes disqualified following the new testing.[27]

Athletes in cross-country skiing were disqualified for various reasons, including doping by two Russians and one Spaniard, leading Russia to file protests and threaten to withdraw from competition.

Opening ceremony

Prior to the ceremony, the turf inside the stadium was removed and a giant, abstract shaped ice rink was installed, covering a large part of the stadium floor. Performers would later perform on ice skates, rather than shoes.Template:Cn

An American Flag rescued from the World Trade Center Site on September 11 was carried into the stadium by an honor guard of American athletes and was carried in by firefighters and police officers. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, clad in white sweaters, performed "the star spangled banner as the American Flag was raised. The parade of the 2300 athletes began traditionally with Greece and ending with the United States of America, receiving a tremendous ovation. As the artistic section kicked off, the five native Utah tribes arrived together on horseback and performed an energetic stomp dance on the ice. Robbie Robertson and Dixie Chicks also performed. What followed were huge puppets of native Utah animals, including a 15 foot long bison.Template:Cn

While there was a lot of international sympathy for the US in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, there were complaints that the Games were being conducted in an overtly patriotic manner. President Bush received some criticism for departing from the Olympic charter by extending the declaration to open the Games, saying “On behalf of a proud, determined and grateful nation” before the traditional formula, “I declare open the Games of Salt Lake City”.[29] In addition, the President opened the games standing among the US athletes, while previous heads of state opened the games from an official box. NBC's Bob Costas applauded the move during the network's coverage of the Opening Ceremony.

2002 Olympic Symbols

Olympic Emblem

The 2002 Olympic emblem is a snowflake, which consisted of three separate sections. The yellow top section symbolizes the Olympic Flame, and represents the athletes' courage. The orange center section symbolizes the ancient weaving styles of Utah's Native Americans, and represents the region's culture. The blue/purple bottom section symbolizes a snow-capped mountain, and represents the contrast of Utah's mountain and desert areas. The orange/yellow colors above the blue/purple bottom section also gave the appearance of a sun rising from behind a mountain.

Theme colors

An official palette of colors, which ranged from cool blues to warm reds and oranges, was created for the Salt Lake 2002 games. The palette became part of the official design theme named Land of Contrast – Fire and Ice, with the blues representing the cooler, snowy, mountainous regions of Northern Utah, and the oranges and red representing the warmer, rugged, red-rock areas of Southern Utah.[30]

Pictograms

As with all Olympic games, pictograms, which easily identified the venues, sports, and services for spectators without using a written language, were specifically designed for the Salt Lake 2002 games. The pictograms for these games mimicked the designs of branding-irons found in the western United States, and used the Fire and Ice theme colors of the Salt Lake 2002 Games. The line thickness and 30-degree angles found in the pictograms mirror those found in the snowflake emblem.[30]

The mascots

The mascots represent three of Utah's indigenous animals, and are named after natural resources which have long been important to Utah's economy, survival, and culture. All three animals are major characters in the legends of local Native Americans, and each mascot wears a charm around its neck with an original Anasazi or Fremont-style petroglyph.

Powder – A Snowshoe Hare, represents the Native American legend when the sun was too close to the earth and was burning it. The hare ran to the top of a mountain, and shot her arrow into the sun. This caused it to drop lower in the sky, cooling the earth.

Copper – A Coyote, represents the Native American legend when the earth froze and turned dark, the coyote climbed to the highest mountaintop and stole a flame from the fire people. He returned and brought warmth and light to the people.

Coal – An American black bear, represents the Native American legend of hunters who were never able to kill the mighty bear. Today the sons of these hunters still chase the bear across the night sky, as constellations.

The Olympic Torch and relay

The 2002 Olympic Torch is modeled after an icicle, with a slight curve to represent speed and fluidity. The Torch measures Template:Convert long, Template:Convert wide at the top, Template:Convert at the bottom, and was designed by Axiom Design of Salt Lake City.[31][32] It was created with three sections, each with its own meaning and representation.[31]

The torch relay was a 65 day run, from December 4, 2001 to February 8, 2002, which carried the Olympic flame through 46 of the 50 states in the United States.[33] The torch covered Template:Convert, passed through 300 communities, and was carried by 12,012 Torchbearers.[33]

The Olympic Cauldron

The Olympic Cauldron was designed with the official motto Light the Fire Within and the Fire and Ice theme in mind. It was designed to look like an icicle, and was made of glass which allowed the fire to be seen burning within. The actual glass cauldron stands atop a twisting glass and steel support, is Template:Convert high, and the flame within burns at Template:Convert.[34] Together with its support the cauldron stands Template:Convert tall and was made of 738 individual pieces of glass. Small jets send water down the glass sides of the cauldron, both to keep the glass and metal cooled (so they would not crack or melt), and to give the effect of melting ice.[35] The cauldron was designed by WET Design of Los Angeles, its frame built by Arrow Dynamics of Clearfield, Utah, and its glass pieces created by Western Glass of Ogden, Utah. The cauldron's cost was $2 million, and it was unveiled to the public during its original install at Rice-Eccles Stadium (2002 Olympic Stadium) on January 8, 2002.[36] Following the completion of the 2002 Winter Olympics the cauldron was installed at the permanent Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Cauldron Park, next the 2002 Olympic Stadium in Salt Lake City.

A second Olympic cauldron burned at the Awards Plaza in downtown Salt Lake City during the games. It was known as the Hero's Cauldron and was in the backdrop of every awards ceremony. This was the first time two cauldrons were used during the same Olympic Games.[37]